Hell Freezes Over: Strength Turns to Reserves
While I am not a believer in manmade global warming, I am pretty sure Sheriff Ronnie Strength is singlehandedly responsible for the blizzard that has buried the hoary underworld and forced Satan to cancel school for all the little demons.
Richmond County’s top lawman has never been a fan of the concept of the reserve deputy programs that many of his neighboring law enforcement leaders have had in place for years, but drastic times call for drastic measures and the financial pinch he finds his department facing has him considering what was once un-considerable.
Strength currently has 32 fewer deputies working the streets than he did when he first took over the office of sheriff in 2001, even though the population has officially remained constant in the last decade at approximately 200,000 residents.
But of course, it is a much different 200,000 matched up with Strength’s small street force from then until now.
We all know Columbia County, Aiken County, North Augusta and other nearby bedroom communities have been growing at a pretty good clip, and many of the upwardly mobile newcomers are immigrants from the former urban center of the entire CSRA, the aforementioned Richmond County-City of Augusta.
The new residents replacing those of us who have moved to the suburbs since 2001 (yes, that would include me) tend to be less educated, lower earning and less law abiding than their predecessors. That means Sheriff Strength is having to work more cases with fewer sworn officers and with a smaller base of serious taxpayers footing the bill than ever before.
For all of his struggles in the daily battle his people have with the criminal element, and the outright inability of the court system to properly lock up (and keep) those who disrupt society and public safety, if you ask me, Sheriff Strength deserves the Nobel Prize for making chicken salad out of chicken sh**.
It could be worse, people. It could be a whole lot worse.
Strength’s commitment to professional law enforcement has always made him reject the notion of the reserve deputy program, simply because his people work the front lines of a whole different world than most of the surrounding departments who use reserves. A Richmond County deputy is the local law enforcement equivalent of a United States Marine. No slam on the other services, but the Marines are bad asses who are trained and ready to deal with the worst enemies under the worst conditions in the regular course of doing business.
Strength’s decision to move to the reserve program is something that he hopes will result in fewer short-staffed shifts, and also give his hard-working street deputies better backup in place than what is currently available, which ain’t much simply for a lack of sworn officers.
He is hoping he gets retired military who want to stay active, and, better yet, retired or former lawmen who are already state certified, who can keep their lucrative day jobs while helping out his guys in their free time.
The reserves will be able to work special duty assignments for third parties and make some money at the same time. The sheriff tells me he has too many requests for such duty to handle, and that he often calls in other departments to fill the void.
In the meantime, look for other department heads in Augusta government to start thinking about previously unconsidered options to reduce costs and make due in the city’s new economic reality… which ain’t pretty.You Might Also Like:
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